Page 17 - EE Times Europe September 2021

EE|Times EUROPE 17

SPECIAL REPORT: EVs
Pushing the Limits of Weight and Power Delivery

in EV Hypercars

By Nitin Dahad

hen I wrote in June that Ferrari
was appointing a CEO from
the semiconductor industry
Win pursuit of its electrification
strategy, I didn’t imagine that a few weeks
later, I’d be out at a show for supercars and
hypercars, talking to car designers about
electric vehicle and hybrid vehicle strategies
and design challenges.
When I was asked to cover the Goodwood
Festival of Speed, I was concerned there
might not be much to cover for EE Times at
this motorsports event. I’d never been to the
show before, but I knew that for most of the
160,000 car enthusiasts who attend, the four-
day event is all about performance and speed.
They come to watch cars roar around the track
and to gape at the huge, open-air exhibitions On the Goodwood track (Source: Nitin Dahad)
of race-track cars, hypercars, vintage cars, and
performance road cars.
Once I arrived and started talking to product managers, though, the U.S. in October and up its production to 20 cars a year.
the conversation easily turned to the technologies that enable these Meanwhile, Louis Kerr, chief platform engineer at Lotus, took time
cars: the powertrain, the electronics, and the relevant communications out to explain the company’s work on the Lotus Evija, an all-electric
architectures, as well as anything that helps optimize for speed and hypercar currently in the prototype phase. While the focus at this
super-performance, as well as weight. year’s Goodwood was on the launch of the brand-new Lotus Emira, the
The show saw debuts of both EV hypercars and pure internal- company’s last-ever petrol engine car launch, the Evija is really driving
combustion–engine cars. There were exhibitors like Zenvo, a small its design thinking of the future.
Danish company that makes only five hypercars a year and said it At the heart of the Evija is an ultra-advanced all-electric power-
doesn’t have plans for fully electric hypercars, as it caters to a market train developed by technical partner Williams Advanced Engineering.
of car enthusiasts. A 25-person company, Zenvo makes the TSR-S Williams is known for its success in motorsport, from Formula One
track-focused but road-legal car entirely in Denmark, including all to electrifying the first four seasons of Formula E. The battery pack is
the electronics and the powertrain. Interestingly, Zenvo opted to use mid-mounted immediately behind the two seats and supplies energy
a standard iPad for the display, as that platform has an interface that directly to four independently controlled high-power–density
everyone uses. CEO Angela Hartman told us that Zenvo is looking at e-motors. These feature integrated silicon carbide inverters and an
a hybrid strategy in the future, but its first plans are to start selling in epicyclic transmission on each axle of the four-wheel–drive powertrain.

Danish hypercar company Zenvo makes only five hypercars a year;
it doesn’t have plans for pure electric hypercars but will look at the The Lotus Evija is an all-electric hypercar currently in the
hybrid route. (Source: Nitin Dahad) prototype phase. (Source: Nitin Dahad)

www.eetimes.eu | SEPTEMBER 2021